Great Answers To Tough Questions At Work

Why do authors write business books? And equally important, why do people read them? Michael Dodd clearly writes to share practical advice, and like most people, I am keen on any book where I can pick up tips that I can go out and use. Great Answers to Tough Questions at Work did it for me. Dodd is a journalist, and it shows. His instinct – unlike some egotistical authors I could name – is to make other people, concepts and war stories the hero of the piece.

He divides the book into developing skills and tools, and how to use them. Media training is invaluable, but it is pricey and not available to all. This book is a handy way to learn the basic principles – acknowledging (not ducking) the question, and bridging to the positive, before communicating what you really want to say and getting into storytelling and examples. If there has been a real disaster, the CARE acronym is good advice (Concern, promise Action, Reassure, go into an Example). As a big enthusiast for colleagues and clients learning the principles of profiling the personalities of the people they deal with, I enjoyed his chapter on ‘getting the right stuff to the right person’. I also applaud his insistence that we all need to see ourselves on video if we are serious about improving the way we come across.

Dodd is thorough. In Part 2 of the book he covers answering technique in a number of different and challenging situations: dealing with prospects, price negotiations, job interviews, tough questions from existing clients, as well as from your boss, and in presentations, events, meetings, and public grillings. It is good that ambitious business people now have an intelligent guide to answers. There have been a number of good books on questions – including Mike Marquardt’s excellent Leading with Questions: How Leaders Find the Right Solutions by Knowing What to Ask.

The only constructive criticism I would make of the Dodd book is that ‘you’ (his reader) is always addressed as an individual. So much of everyone’s working life is spent in teams. While leaders should lead from the front, followers (that is most of us) need to work together, sharing problems and deciding not just how we respond, but also who should tackle which aspect, including fronting up. An assumption that great answers will often come from joint decision making would have been realistic – and helpful. Nevertheless, buy the book would be my advice! It’s entertaining, well written and useful.